f the Polish
nobles, and showered his courtesies on those of the inferior orders, at
length the critical moment approached, and the finishing hand was to be
put to the work. Poland, with the appearance of a popular government,
was a singular aristocracy of a hundred thousand electors, consisting of
the higher and the lower nobility, and the gentry; the people had no
concern with the government. Yet still it was to be treated by the
politician as a popular government, where those who possessed the
greatest influence over such large assemblies were orators, and he who
delivered himself with the most fluency and the most pertinent arguments
would infallibly bend every heart to the point he wished. The French
bishop depended greatly on the effect which his oration was to produce
when the ambassadors were respectively to be heard before the assembled
diet; the great and concluding act of so many tedious and difficult
negotiations--"which had cost my master," writes the ingenuous
secretary, "six months' daily and nightly labours; he had never been
assisted or comforted by any but his poor servants, and in the course of
these six months had written ten reams of paper, a thing which for forty
years he had not used himself to."

Every ambassador was now to deliver an oration before the assembled
electors, and thirty-two copies were to be printed, to present one to
each palatine, who in his turn was to communicate it to his lords. But a
fresh difficulty occurred to the French negotiator; as he trusted
greatly to his address influencing the multitude, and creating a popular
opinion in his favour, he regretted to find that the imperial ambassador
would deliver his speech in the Bohemian language, so that he would be
understood by the greater part of the assembly; a considerable advantage
over Montluc, who could only address them in Latin. The inventive genius
of the French bishop resolved on two things which had never before been
practised: first, to have his Latin translated into the vernacular
idiom; and, secondly, to print an edition of fifteen hundred copies in
both languages, and thus to obtain a vast advantage over the other
ambassadors, with their thirty-two manuscript copies, of which each copy
was used to be read to 1200 persons. The great difficulty was to get it
secretly translated and printed. This fell to the management of
Choisnin, the secretary. He set off to the castle of the palatine,
Solikotski, who was deep in th